“When you look at them all together, there’s no indication they come from the same nation,” he said.

Mitchell, who works for product design firm Bresslergroup in
Philadelphia, took a look at the flags of all 50 states and was bothered
by the lack of a blanket design scheme. “Discordant” was how he
described them as a group on the project’s website. They also broke
every rule of flag design. Yes, there are rules to flag design.

Those rules include simplicity (meaning a child could draw it from
memory), relevant symbolism, no more than three basic colors, no text or
seals, and a distinctive look that doesn’t ape other flags.

Mitchell set about unifying color and proportion across all fifty
flags, using a vibrant red, white, and blue for each, while retaining
some sense of symbolism for each.

The best flags in the union — Texas, California, Wyoming, and Washington — only have a passing glimmer of their former selves. Click to see the one proposed for California.

Yes, the proposed flag doesn’t even have that iconic bear anymore, though it does have something resembling a beach.
“Removing the bear was a controversial decision on my part, one that
might change. I debated for a while at the time when I did it, and I
might add it back in,” says Mitchell. His proposals for the other 49 states follow. New York's is kind of cool.